The Obama Bounce & San Diego’s Cleantech Innovators, Zeebo Steps Onto A Global Stage, Hollis-Eden Axes Its Namesake Founder, & More SD BizTech News

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—San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARNA]]) secured a $50 million equity financing commitment. The company did not disclose how it plans to use the proceeds from sales of its shares, which will take place at the company’s discretion over the next 18 months.

—Sofinnova Ventures partner and San Diego-based Trius Therapeutics CEO Jeff Stein told a Biocom audience last week that many venture capital firms are now taking a hard look at creating new companies around a virtual business model.

—The Salk Institute formed a collaborative partnership with global pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis that will provide additional funding for expanded work on stem cell research.

—Private telecommunications provider Carousel Industries of Exeter, R.I., has acquired San Diego’s Daycom Systems as part of a West Coast expansion. Financial terms were not disclosed.

—Stealthy startup Calixa Therapeutics announced that an early stage trial of its new antibiotic to fight pseudomonal infections appears encouraging enough to move to the next phase of testing.

—Luke reported that Cambridge, MA-based Biogen Idec, which operates a San Diego R&D center, is developing a way to make its best-selling drug for treating multiple sclerosis last longer in the bloodstream—and that could help its drug patent last longer in the market.

—Biogen’s Cambridge-based neighbor, Genzyme (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GENZ]]), which also has San Diego operations, is expecting results from a clinical trial of patients in an experimental gene therapy for peripheral artery disease. Luke reports the trial could show a single shot can help patients to walk without pain.

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.